December 2007 Archives
By Hollie Wegman on
December 20, 2007 10:17 AM
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There is one thing any good business person knows--if you want to be successful, you better be prepared to CRUSH your competitors. On the competitive battlefield we are gladiators. We arm ourselves with maces, shields and swords. We are rivals, not friends. There will be, after all, only one winner.
I have, over the years, become used to these ways of thinking of competition. It might come from my years in strategy consulting. I mean, Micheal Porter's On Competition is sitting on my desk right now. I think when Porter is your desk reference you are pretty at home with the competitive concept. I am not, however, some hard-nosed businesswoman that is ready to crush her competitors at all costs. I admit it, I am a soft heart. When the big drug store chain comes in and puts that little family pharmacy out of business I am really bummed. I get it that that is how things work in the business world, but come on...do they really have to do that?
So, I guess what I am saying is that I have become accustomed to these things, but I have never felt good about them. It is a way of doing business, but is it really the only way?
In my work, I am lucky in that I get to talk to lots of nonprofit executive directors. I get to hear about their organizational challenges and about the creative and effective ways they overcome them. When I ask executive directors what they think about competitors and how they deal with them, I find that they often do not think of nonprofits offering similar services as competitors at all. They say things like, "We really are all working together" or "We are not incompetition. We collaborate with other nonprofits; we do not compete." I was puzzled by this at first and I almost thought it was a veil they were hiding behind because they did not like words like "competition" or "rivals."
As I think about the issue more and spend even more time talking to nonprofit leaders, I realize that they really do look at things this way. Many nonprofits see themselves as stewards to their organization's mission. A steward is a conscientious caretaker of the mission, but the mission really belongs to the community it serves. Think about it like this, the mission belonging to the community it serves and the nonprofit's primary goal being to make sure that the mission is realized. It is not about any particular nonprofit's success or ability to stay in "business"; it is about the mission living on in the community.
This means that whatever best serves to push forward a mission, you do it. That can mean entering into a collaborative relationship or even giving way to your more effective competitor (gasp!) and closing your doors.
This undermines the whole premise of competition because competition is all about keeping your business regardless of who comes on the scene. I like this idea of mission stewardship because it means nonprofits put their communities first, even if it means they have to close their doors. Now I have a new book on my desk, Brinckerhoff's new book: Nonprofit Stewardship: A Better Way to Lead Your Mission-Based Organization. Porter is moving towards the bottom of the pile.
By Kunal Modi on
December 17, 2007 11:20 AM
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I agree with Aaron that engaging undergraduate and graduate students in pro bono projects as a part of their curriculum provides both an invaluable learning experience and a method to foster the pro bono ethnic in emerging young professionals. However, I do share Aaron's concern that far too often existing campus led pro bono activities deploy students into the community in a way that while offering a great learning experience, isn't the most effective or efficient way for a resource-strapped nonprofit to utilize innovative minds. That being said, the challenge is to create campus-driven pro bono projects that capitalize on student strengths--as energetic, collaborative, tech-savvy, resourceful researchers and thinkers--and provide them with the tools, resources, and expertise that will enable them to drive tangible solutions for nonprofits.
That core belief--that through proper support and an empowerment-driven model, students can effectively work with nonprofits to strengthen their community--is the underpinning of campusCATALYST (cC), an organization I co-founded with fellow Northwestern alum Molly Day. campusCATALYST seeks to engage undergrads in pro bono, high-impact consulting engagements on behalf of community-based organizations, while providing professional training, business mentorship, and leadership development. Students in the program enroll in a nonprofit management course, providing social sector consulting training, through their university and each team of students is paired with a MBA candidate with prior consulting experience for guidance and support. Prior to each engagement, cC works with each nonprofit to define the scope of the problem being addressing, the timeline for the project, and expected deliverables. Feedback from both nonprofits and students has proven that this strategic and structured approach delivers effective solutions and promotes a collaborative approach to social change. To learn more about the work and impact of campusCATALYST, please visit www.campuscatalyst.org.
We believe that team by team, nonprofit by nonprofit, college students and their neighbors have the opportunity to work together, learn more about the community, and create truly meaningful change.
By Aaron Hurst on
December 14, 2007 9:14 AM
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We did a a focus group yesterday with 10 nonprofit executive directors to understand their strategic planning challenges and explore how pro bono could be used to support the process. What an impressive group. Collectively, I think they had been involved in at least 50 strategic planning projects, and they brought a real depth of understanding and pragmatism to the process.
What emerged as a core theme was the importance of strategic planning as a way to reach out to stakeholders (volunteers, donors, clients, board, partners, city officials, etc.) to help them connect with the organization. It was clear that this effort was as much about inclusion and engagement as it was about the actual content. It is a rare opportunity to really reach out to people who care about the success of the organization and have a real conversation.
Pro bono support from business professionals with planning and research backgrounds enables an organization to radically increase the number of conversations. This in turn increases the size of the stakeholder group that is engaged and therefore makes them more loyal and supportive of the nonprofit. Most nonprofits around the table reported that they were only able to engage 10-20 stakeholders in their planning process but would ideally like to touch closer to 50 people. With pro bono support to help conduct and record these conversations, they could achieve that goal and perhaps even surpass it. This would not only increase support for the organization, it would yield a much richer set of insight into their strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.
Given this insight, we are going to look at how we can make our "Strategic Planning Preparation" Service Grant include as many stakeholders as possible. Check out the current design of the Service Grant in our grant catalogue.
By Aaron Hurst on
December 5, 2007 1:17 PM
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As an undergrad at the University of Michigan, I took a great course in organizational behavior that focused on team building and team performance. It had a significant impact on the design of our pro bono program.
It was in that class that I was introduced to the concept of "social loafing." The idea is that on many teams there are members who don't carry their weight, which builds resentment and risks the success of the endeavor.
This has been a widely studied phenomenon and there are now understood ways to build teams to minimize the likelihood of loafing (love that word). We have adopted many of these practices, but the one that stands out to me is the practice of creating clearly differentiated roles.
If you have a team where multiple people can accomplish the same tasks, it is common for one of these people to loaf, as they know that the slack can be picked up by another member of the team. On the other hand, if each role is distinct and requires skills that are unique to that individual, all team members know that if they don't play their part, the project will not get done.
For example, in building a website, the HTML developer knows that he or she is the only one who can build the site. The copywriter can't do it. The marketing manager can't do it. The graphic designer can't do it. There is clear responsibility, accountability and sense of purpose (and therefore reward). Similarly, the graphic designer is the only one who can do the design.
That is as elegant a differentiation in roles as you can get. Even on that team, roles like copywriter and marketing manager can lead to social loafing as others think they can also do marketing and writing. So, if the copywriter is not performing, other members of the team may step in and hack some copy, and therefore let the writer off the hook.
So, in pro bono work, where generous volunteers are trying to fit service into their busy schedules, the likelihood of loafing is very high. As you are managing and staffing pro bono projects, take time to think about how to scope and staff the project to create clearly differentiated roles that will increase the odds of a successful project.
For more on social loafing and how to minimize its impact, check out this resource:
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Managing_Groups_and_Teams/Social_Loafing
